Friday, June 22, 2018

F³ Passenger 12D

I waited in line to board. They took
the usuals, first, elderly or others needing assistance, then families to get
situated with their equipment and kids, first class and business people, then
the rest of us, herded through the jetway like cattle to market. I didn’t like
the analogy, but we trundled along in just that way.

I boarded, giving a pleasant smile
to the brunette flight attendant, Amanda, who welcomed me aboard, but then bent
her ear back to the elderly woman she stood next to in the row.

“. . . my granddaughter used to help
me crochet. She would untangle the knots in the yarn when my cat got into the
skeins. I would teach her how to count rows and make the stiches using the
hooks. It was so fun seeing her trying to use the needles in her little hands.”
She choked up on the needles to illustrate by only holding them with her first
two fingers. “I had to get her a smaller set to use.”

“How fun,” Amanda replied. “How old
is she, now?”

The woman’s face darkened with just
a tiny frown and downcast eyes, and her hands suddenly gripped the crochet
needles very tightly. “She—she passed away. She was six. She would have been
nine this year.”

“I’m so sorry,” Amanda said.

“She was so young,” the old woman
began again, her voice much softer, and I missed out on what else she said as
the line in front of me moved and the man behind me ‘accidentally’ nudged me
forward.

I moved up again, and spied a mother
trying to juggle A baby carrier, a little girl around five or so, and a boy
around seven. There was no father to help her out, and she looked frazzled
already, telling the boy to sit in the seat instead of jumping up and down on
it.

I checked the seat she was in, then
checked my ticket. We were in the same row. I glanced over to the other side of
the aisle to see a woman already in the window seat with her laptop out, typing
away. The middle seat was still empty, and I had the aisle, except there was a
boy in my seat. He sat quietly kicking his legs idly, but without hitting the
seat in front. I checked the ticket again, and saw that I had the right seat.

When I approached the boy hopped out
and looked up at me. Around nine years old, maybe a little younger—it was hard
to tell with kids—he had sandy hair and a smile for me. Without saying a word,
he hugged my leg, and then started pushing his way through line of people
boarding. I watched him go, people making way for him to pass by without
realizing what they were doing.

“Matthew,”
Nikki said softly, but concern and curiosity on her face. “Was that the same
boy that we encountered last year?”

“Yeah. This
was the year after I first encountered him. It only hit me later that I recognized
him, but same kid.”

“Well then,
this will be an interesting story after all.”

I shrugged.
“Depends on what you call interesting. There was no danger or anything, not
like with the last one. No demons, no singing. The biggest danger was probably
the gingerbread men.”